Spice had recently launched the Smart Pulse watch Model M-9010. The interface will remind you about the feature phones. This pulse watch also turns into a Smartwatch once connected with a smartphone. The Spice Smart Pulse M-9010 is priced at Rs. 3,999.
Inside the box: You get the watch (with black strap), blue and yellow coloured extra watch strap with 4 watch pins, user guide, warranty card, data cable, travel charger, earphone with micro USB pin, a free Spice Bluetooth headset and 420 mAh battery.
Design, Display and OS
The Smart Pulse build quality is good but finishing could have been better. Considering the price tag it is not that bad. It is plastic body with glossy finish and on the front it has a metallic sliver finishing. The watch looks almost like the Galaxy Gear watch.
Though Spice have provided two free watch straps it will not be easy to replace them, you might need watchmakers help or if you know ‘how to’, you can do it yourself. The micro USB port and power button are placed on the left. A camera and a LED flash are on the right. Camera is VGA (640×480 pixels).
On the front there are 3 touch sensitive buttons and an in-call speaker. There is no loudspeaker. For incoming calls and notifications the in-call speaker is used. Some pre-installed ringtones are quite loud, they can be heard even via the in-call speaker. You can also choose ringtone + vibration or just vibration if you prefer. The Spice Smart Pulse weight with battery is 54 grams and this watch is 13.44mm thick.
Screen is 1.6 inches capacitive touch supporting 320 x 240 pixels resolution. Touch screen is quite responsive, but at times it is not that easy getting the buttons tapped properly, because of the small size. Touch is smooth. There are no sensors and the watch screen will not switch on automatically; you will need to press the power button. You will get a lock screen too when you switch on – tap and hold the lock button to unlock.
Viewing angles are not good and the screen is not at all visible under direct sunlight. This watch does not run android it is Java based, in fact this will remind you of the feature phones that sail on such operating system.
Hardware and performance
Not much of the details are revealed but looking at the performance it could be using an under 1GHz processor (probably around 500MHz). The response is a bit slow as experience on feature phones. Again there is no word about the memory, but really not needed – you will be using the micro SD for personal storage and forget about app installation on this device.
This is a dual SIM watch. For the master SIM slot you will need a normal SIM and for the slave SIM slot you will need a micro SIM. 2G is supported but again it is no good. If you enable data then you will not receive calls.
Phone feature
When you receive a call or when you make a call you can use the wired earphone, a Bluetooth headset or just bring the in-call speaker near to your ear and start talking. There are no issues reading SMS’s but creating a new message might take a lot of time and patience.
Sound
The in-call sound is good, but not loud enough in noisy environments, better to use BT headset or wired earphone in such a situation.
Others
The LED can be used as a torch, not very strong but good up to distance of 5 feet. In camera mode there is an option to switch on the LED all the time.
There is built in Bluetooth that is used to connect with other devices like BT headset and smartphones. Pairing the watch with the smartphone is pretty simple. You will need to download the BT notification app from the Spice support webpage. Do not install the BT notification apps from Google play store it will not work.
I connected the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom with the Spice Smart Pulse watch, it got paired and the BT notification app worked perfectly well. I could remotely control the camera from the watch – the smartphone should be in unlock mode.
When you are remotely using the smartphone camera all captured images will be stored on the smartphone itself.
The best part was when I received a call on the Galaxy K Zoom. I got the notification on the watch too. I tapped answer on the watch and was able to talk with the caller using the Spice watch itself (with watch mic and in-call speaker closer to my ear). Now this is really fantastic, would have been better if there was a loudspeaker, but in-call speaker does well. You really don’t need to pick you phone just use the watch.
When you connect the watch using data cable with your PC you get two options – connect as USB and COM port.
Camera
It is a VGA camera on the right side with LED. As already mentioned you can keep the LED on or off. You can also shoot videos. If you want to use the built in camera then better use a micro SD card. However VGA camera output usually are no good.
Battery
This Spice Pulse watch comes with a 420 mAh battery. I had been using this as a backup phone for my ‘not much used SIM’. It does last for about 2 to 3 days on a single charge. Just one or 2 calls per day for under 5 minutes and about 3 to 5 SMS’s (mostly spam’s).
If the watch is connected with the smartphone (via Bluetooth) battery backup will be a little more than 24 hours or less depending on your usage.
Verdict
It could turn out to be a good backup (watch) phone. There are 2 SIM slots you can use this as a standalone phone and as a Smartwatch when connected with a smartphone (Push Notifications supported). It will stay on your wrist and is easily accessible, even helps you receive calls via your smartphone without touching it.
The screen unfortunately is not visible under direct sunlight, if you are okay with this, the Spice Smart Pulse is indeed a very good buy for a price of just Rs. 3,999 – you also get a blue and a yellow strap and a free Spice BT headset.
Smart Pulse available on Homeshop18.
Spice pulse watch Image Gallery
